


All The Pleasures Prove

by wildestranger



Category: 16th Century CE RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 14:25:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildestranger/pseuds/wildestranger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kit pours some wine into a new cup; the man sits down. His fingers are also stained with ink.</p>
<p>“Master Shakespeare, I have a grievance against you.”</p>
<p>The man smiles. “I thought you might.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	All The Pleasures Prove

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alba17](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alba17/gifts).



The hour is late, but not late enough. Two candles have burned to their death in the time Kit has sat at his desk, and his inkpot is half empty. He is writing, not waiting; the fellow does not deserve more of his time than he has already taken. Kit has papers to besmirch. 

He is writing about Leander and his lively form. The waters of the Hellespont are not dark like wine, but they are clear to see through and taste like salt on Leander’s skin. Kit swims with the lithe young men, and waits with the smiling god to catch them by their (he frowns, thinks of a pun, decides against it this early in the poem) ankle. He is thinking about wandering in the filthy streets of Rome, where Ovid is writing his version of the story, cursing his slave girls and his boys and his emperor. There is no Will Shakespeare competing for the favour of Augustus. 

A door is opened downstairs.

Kit looks at his papers, thinks about putting them away, thinks about spreading them over the table to show how busy he is. He puts the last page under the inkpot; he’ll remember where he was when the man leaves. There is ink under his fingernails, and a big smudge by his thumb. He wipes it on the table.

There is a knock on the door. Kit drinks his wine, and waits. The door opens; a man enters.

Will Shakespeare has an awkward face, strangely round in the lower part and strangely tall on top. No hat, only dark hair curling behind his ears. Not a gentleman then, but unashamed to show it. 

“Master Shakespeare.”

“Master Marlowe.”

Kit pours some wine into a new cup; the man sits down. His fingers are also stained with ink.

“Master Shakespeare, I have a grievance against you.”

The man smiles. “I thought you might.”

* 

It begins with a brief meeting, nothing remarkable. Will Shakespeare is new to the city, keen to discuss the magic of wordplay with the renowned playwright; Kit is drunk, belligerent, and annoyed by the cut of Master Shakespeare’s coat. Many a young writer, actual or aspirational, has sought Kit out in some tavern and received an excess of acidic wit for his pains, or rather for his timing. Kit feels no remorse over this – it is a reasonable way to counter enthusiasm without thought, and they should know better than to come between a man and his fourth and fifth cups. The fourth being the last of a temperate night, and the fifth an admission that temperance has been abandoned for the night in question. Kit treasures that moment.

This man, although wearing the remains of Kit’s wine, offers no protest; he smiles. Kit, more concerned with filling his empty cup than talking to a fellow with such a cheap coat, walks away and forgets. 

Master Shakespeare, it appears, does not.

That is the first meeting. The second is more of an encounter than a meet; _Tamburlaine_ performed at the Rose, _Two Gentlemen of Verona_ at the Curtain; players drinking together and Ned Alleyn standing on the table. Kit hears of it later, that his words were pronounced with supreme grace, but gave less occasion to merriment than those of Proteus’ clown. Master Shakespeare has an ear for what will please the crowd. But Kit has more force, more erudition, and none can defeat his Scythian shepherd. 

If young Zenocrate does not come to find his room after the play, Kit thinks nothing of it.

* 

“I object, sir, to your history.”

“My history is your history, we are both Englishmen.”

That the man has some wit is no surprise, Kit has heard (and read, and reread) his plays. That he dares to offer some of it to Kit, in mocking terms no less, is unexpected. But to continue. Kit has a point to make, possibly even a list of items on his mind. Item the first.

“Your history is petty and dull, your kings vain and vulgar. Plucked out of Holinshed and Hall, and made to act our domestic dramas of heirs and inheritances like city burghers.”

Shakespeare’s face is a mask of innocent reproof.

“They are kings, their heirs are their proper concern; is it not so with our queen? Yet being royal they are also people, and thus petty, and dull, and vain, and vulgar.”

“And that is your excuse? That they are people, and therefore thus?”

Kit raises his eyebrows, and his voice.

“My excuse, Master Marlowe, is my language.”

There is a smirk lurking in the corner of Shakespeare’s mouth. The question of language (a tongue most dextrous and effective, _lingua celeri et exercitata_ ) is best left unpursued. 

“What use you make of your tongue,” the smirk deepens at that, but Kit elects not to pause, “is to make foul those that ought to be great. What of Richard III, a noble king piteously murdered?”

Master Shakespeare brings his own eyebrows to play. 

“So he may have been, but being defeated by the grandfather of our queen, who would dare to say so on the stage?”

“I would dare many things, Master Shakespeare. More things than you have a mind to dream of.”

It is a challenge, but not one Kit expects to be accepted. Yet the man only smiles wider, and raises his cup.

“And what of your Edward II? What does your mind dream of for him?”

* 

Kit would not say he has a favourite, but Zenocrate, being his first lady and the proper companion of his Tamburlaine, holds a place in his heart. Or his other parts; the boy underneath has soft eyes and a clever mouth, which is how Kit likes eyes and mouths to be. Willie Hews has also been his Dido and his Isabella (and Shakespeare’s Margaret of Anjou, and his Anne Neville). He has the command of a queen, even in Kit’s bed.

But Willie Hughes no longer seeks him out. It may have taken a few weeks for Kit to notice – there was wine, and Ovid, and a massacre of Huguenots to arrange – but when he does, when he _asks_ , a silence of some embarrassment ensues. Kit has no problem saying things considered unsayable, which in turn may occasion embarrassing silences, but the embarrassment is always for someone else, not for him. His companions look at each other, but no one speaks. Clearly, what is waiting to be said will make trouble for more than Kit. It would be kind to ask no further.

Despite what some say of him, Kit is not kind.

“My friends, your silence is delicate and gentlemanly, but it is not friendly. It forces me to seek my answers elsewhere, and not all spaces are as friendly as this. And you know I am not a temperate man. Who knows what I might say, if made desperate? And if, as is likely, I would have had some many cups of wine before venturing out? You would not want what ensues on your conscience.”

Not his best speech, but it strikes some fear in the hearts of his friends (his Thomases: Kyd, pale and sickly-looking; Watson, still crapulous from the night before and shying from loud voices). His friends who know that outrageous speech is not only his profession but his pleasure.

Kyd, his cheeks an unsightly red, shakes his head and crouches down. Watson, no longer caring about either propriety or Kit’s threats, tells him. 

“Master Hews has taken a room with Mistress Shipley, by the Boar’s Head tavern. He is frequently found drinking with Master William Shakespeare, the author of recent plays at the Rose.” With this, Watson gives Kit a humorous look; it is possible he may have discoursed at length on the recent plays at the Rose. “Master Hughes plays the lady for Master Shakespeare on the stage. It would, of course, be indecorous to inquire further.”

Kit, he is gladly shameless to say, is an indecorous man. But there is, as Watson implies, no need to inquire further.

* 

“…is admissible in the spirit of competition, but to court my boys…”

“Hardly yours, Marlowe, if they choose to come to me.”

“…and not only Willie Hews, but John Sands…”

“He liked my Silvia and developed a passion for Italian romance, am I to refuse a young man because he has performed for you?”

“…and Thomas Carpenter…”

“Who wanted to practice his lines, because Lavinia is a challenging role…”

“And there, Master Shakespeare, I have you. For I know full well that you approached him, and offered to tutor him in ravishment.”

Shakespeare’s mouth twitches, but Kit refuses to be drawn into examining the ridiculousness of the line with its author, hideous as it is. More hideous, since it worked.

“He had no experience in ravishment,” Shakespeare says after a moment. “I was able to assist.”

And Kit can see it, this mild and careful man with his ugly coat, using his words and his mobile mouth to suggest things, and do things, and do them thoroughly and persuasively. It would have been easy for Thomas to succumb. And John. And Willie. But the comprehensiveness of this list raises questions about its ultimate aim.

“If this has been your revenge for my unkind words, what is your endgame? Do you wish to see me abandoned by my friends, cursing your name from my solitary bed?”

“I would see you abandoned and cursing in my bed. With all the high astounding terms you can think of.”

There is barely a shift in his expression, a hint of satisfaction in the eyes and a slight curving of the lips, but this is undoubtedly the punch line. Kit fills his cup; his mouth is suddenly dry. He drinks, and Will Shakespeare watches and waits.

“Is your performance likely to be so disappointing?”

Shakespeare stands up, and nods towards the corner, where straws and dirty sheets denote Kit’s sleeping place. “Shall we see?”

* 

Kit intersperses his cursing with taunting and invective; every press of fingers deserves a commentary, after all, and Will likes to keep his mouth busy with other things. Kit pulls his hair and gives him bruises on his sides, and Will responds with bites on his throat, his belly, his thighs. Half of the straw ends up on the floor, and Kit spills his wine (viciously, intentionally) all over Will’s clothes. Will pulls him over, pushes him down, and ties him up with his wine-soaked shirt.

* 

Master Shakespeare leaves at dawn, with a stolen shirt and Kit’s copy of Ovid. When he wakes, Kit sends a boy to curse his name, his house, and his lopsided face, and tells him to bring wine next time.

**Author's Note:**

> In lieu of footnotes, I have thanks to make and references to offer.
> 
> To my dear L., who not only provided the world's fastest beta but also answered my endless questions about Elizabethan history - once again you have my gratitude.
> 
> Marlowe's quote from Latin is Cicero, _De Or_., 1.18.83.
> 
> Some allusions (not as many as I would I have liked, but some) to Marlowe's own works can be found in the text - if you think you've seen one, you probably have.
> 
> Willie Hews is, of course, a creation of Oscar Wilde, who in _The Portrait of Mr W. H._ posits the existence of a boy player enjoyed (and competed over) by both playwrights. John Sands is the name of a real Elizabethan boy player - I was unable to discover another one who would fit the time line, and so Thomas Carpenter is my own invention.
> 
> Marlowe's comment about Richard II being "piteously murdered" is from a statement released by the city of York in 1485. I have no reason to think that Marlowe would have been a Ricardian supporter, as it were, but I suspect he would have enjoyed making an argument in opposition to the popular view.


End file.
